5 Best Managed Cloud Hosting (Feb. 2024)

Best Managed Cloud Hosting

If you’re thinking of diving into cloud hosting, fear not, because we’ve singled out the best managed cloud hosting for your website. Finding the right hosting provider is similar to searching for buried treasure, but we have the map that will guide you to the “x” that marks the spot.

The ‘cloud’ in cloud hosting is not white and fluffy. It refers to a massive network of virtual servers working together to host your website. Cloud web hosting provides superior reliability and scalability compared to what a traditional physical server provides. When one cloud server goes down, the other cloud servers in the network pick up the slack. The cloud’s underlying infrastructure prevents downtime for your site visitors and maintains speed during increased website traffic.

Now that you know what cloud hosting is, let’s talk about managed cloud services. Most website owners don’t have the time or know-how to manage their servers. Server management includes technical duties such as data migration, security monitoring, and ongoing maintenance to ensure your website operates efficiently. Your hosting provider may offer managed cloud services that relieve you of dealing with the headache of putting your site on the world wide web.

The benefits of cloud infrastructure are clear, but selecting the best managed cloud hosting platform is no easy task. Before you walk the plank, take some time to browse our recommendations for the best cloud hosting services so you can make your cloud migration with ease.

Best Value Cloud Hosts

The words “cheap” and “good” don’t often go together, but when it comes to these providers, you can ease your concerns about quality web hosting for a low price. A quality managed cloud service will provide premium features that optimize your hosting experience. Key features we look for in a quality managed hosting plan are

  • Auto-healing cloud servers with free backups
  • 1-click server cloning and easy management
  • Ultimate scalability with limitless customizations
  • Ample cloud storage
  • 24/7/365 expert support for your hosting plan

You may choose from a range of hosting services to suit your site’s needs. A good, affordable managed cloud service provider should balance cost and features to bring the most value possible. As you review each hosting platform, consider how much storage, bandwidth, and extra features you need to optimize your website and make the best choice.

1. Cloudways.com

Cloudways review

Monthly Starting Price $8.25

  • Managed cloud hosting with 24/7/365 monitoring
  • Choose from 5 popular cloud providers
  • Auto-healing cloud servers with FREE backups
  • 3-day free trial with no credit card required
  • Host unlimited apps with no contract lock-in
  • Get started on Cloudways now.

CLOUD
RATING
4.6 ★★★★★ Our Review

Cloudways: Our Expert’s Review

Alexandra Anderson (HostingAdvice.com): If you can’t beat the cloud provider behemoths, offer their infrastructure as a service. Cloudways gives customers their choice of cloud platform: AWS, Google, Linode, Digital Ocean, or Vultr. Go to full review »

Setup Time Disk Space CPU RAM
8 minutes 20 GB SSD – 4 TB SSD 1 – 96 cores 1 GB – 384 GB

2. Hostwinds.com

Hostwinds review

Monthly Starting Price $4.99

  • Choose your OS or application configuration
  • Hourly or monthly billing for convenience
  • Optional upgrades for cPanel, backups, and more
  • Managed services, SSDs, and HDDs available
  • Block and object storage, plus enterprise firewall
  • Get started on Hostwinds now.

CLOUD
RATING
4.6 ★★★★★ Our Review

Hostwinds: Our Expert’s Review

Laura Bernheim (HostingAdvice.com): Hostwinds provides supremely scalable and customizable options for the savvy developer or site owner. Customers can customize their cloud environment or choose pre-built configurations optimized to run apps like WordPress, Drupal, and others. Go to full review »

Setup Time Disk Space CPU RAM
6 minutes 30 GB SSD – 750 GB SSD 1 – 16 cores 1 – 96 GB

3. Kamatera.com

Kamatera review

Monthly Starting Price $4.00

  • Ultimate scalability with limitless customizations
  • Create and deploy servers in 60 seconds
  • Easily add load balancers and firewalls
  • Stellar 99.95% uptime guarantee
  • Sign up today for a 30-day FREE trial
  • Get started on Kamatera now.

CLOUD
RATING
4.9 ★★★★★ Our Review

Kamatera: Our Expert’s Review

Laura Bernheim (HostingAdvice.com): Starting with more than 60 operating system images to choose from, Kamatera is a strong option for developers who know exactly what environment works best for their project. Customize your cloud server as needed and deploy in less than a minute. Go to full review »

Setup Time Disk Space CPU RAM
5 minutes 20 GB SSD – 4 TB SSD 1 – 32 cores 1 GB – 128 GB

Best Managed WordPress Cloud Hosting

WordPress powers roughly 40% of all websites. WP has become the world’s most popular content management system (CMS) because of its sleek design, impressive plugins, and robust user support community. Its popularity has placed a demand on cloud hosting services to provide competitive WordPress hosting for WP users.

man building a wordpress site
WordPress is a popular content management system (CMS) that allows you to create a website without any coding know-how.

WordPress hosting is the act of hosting a WordPress site on a hosting platform that optimizes the CMS hosting experience. When you select a managed WordPress host, your provider will take care of the setup, maintenance, and technical duties associated with your cloud server. A cloud hosting plan optimized for WordPress will include features such as

  • 1-click WordPress installs
  • Automatic backups and 1-click restores
  • 24/7/365 expert support
  • 100% uptime guarantees
  • Free domain name for one year

Sure, you can host your WordPress website with any cloud host. But some cloud hosting services stand above others for quality and value. We’ve reviewed dozens of managed WordPress hosts and discovered our favorites truly shine for customer service, speed, security, and scalability. Before you select your hosting platform, look at our top picks.

4. Cloudways.com

Cloudways review

Monthly Starting Price $8.25

  • Migrate unlimited WP sites using Cloudways plugin
  • FREE CDN and WordPress staging areas
  • Caching plugin, Breeze, comes pre-installed
  • SSD storage for 3x faster WordPress hosting
  • 25% OFF with code HOSTINGADVICE
  • Get started on Cloudways now.

MANAGED WORDPRESS
RATING
4.5 ★★★★★ Our Review

Cloudways: Our Expert’s Review

Alexandra Anderson (HostingAdvice.com): Cloudways makes it simple to kick-start a WordPress site or app hosted in a cloud environment. During the initial setup, we were given a choice of a single- or multi-site installation of the latest WordPress version — complete with Cloudways optimizations — or a no-frills WP install. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
3-day FREE trial 20 GB SSD – 4 TB SSD New or Transfer 8 minutes

5. Hostinger.com

Hostinger review

Monthly Starting Price $2.49

  • 1-click WP install, PHP 7+, HTTP/2, and NGINX
  • All-in-one security protections from BitNinja
  • WordPress optimizations boost performance
  • No price markup for WordPress services
  • Daily backups and FREE SSL certificate
  • Get started on Hostinger now.

MANAGED WORDPRESS
RATING
4.9 ★★★★★ Our Review

Hostinger: Our Expert’s Review

Laura Bernheim (HostingAdvice.com): As much as we love WordPress, one of our biggest pet peeves is when hosting providers exploit the popularity of the world’s most-used content management system by offering so-called WordPress hosting that, in reality, is exactly the same as the host’s shared server plans. Fortunately, Hostinger’s ultra-fast infrastructure and easy access to SSL certificates and backups sets up the company to outperform the vast majority of the violators of our admittedly made-up rule. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
30 days 100 GB SSD – 200 GB NVMe FREE (1 year) 4 minutes

What’s the Difference Between Cloud and VPS?

The difference between cloud hosting and VPS hosting is subtle. A virtual private server (VPS) is a physical server that is virtually partitioned to provide similar resources to a dedicated server at a lower cost. VPSs use virtualization software to create these partitions within the server. These partitions prevent other websites hosted on the same VPS from infringing on your storage and bandwidth.

Even though you’re technically sharing a VPS, you get a much larger slice of the pie than what you get with traditional shared hosting. The virtualization software used in VPSs also creates more security. Users can take advantage of limitless customization and decent scalability due to the nature of the server setup.

As we discussed, cloud hosting uses multiple virtual servers in an enormous network to host your website. Cloud infrastructure is increasing in popularity because of its benefits to growing organizations. A cloud server is the best web hosting method for optimal scalability and cloud storage because of the massive network of servers.

In terms of security and cost, both cloud hosting and VPS hosting fall between shared hosting and dedicated hosting. You’ll pay a bit more for cloud and VPS than you would with a shared hosting plan. However, you’re getting greater security and storage in return.

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is an umbrella term that refers to providing cloud services, such as servers, storage, and software, through a virtual network. Cloud computing offers several benefits over traditional on-premise software

  • Cloud services offer pay-as-you-go pricing
  • Superior reliability due to server redundancy
  • Public and private cloud environments to customize security
  • Speed, performance, and global scale

Cloud adoption is steadily rising, particularly among organizations looking to transfer from dedicated servers to the cloud for cost savings. Organizations are transferring services to cloud hosting providers such as Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services. These providers offer cloud hosting on the Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Cloud, respectively.

Cloud and pixel graphics
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt coined the term “cloud computing” at an industry conference in 2006.

Similar to traditional on-premise services, providers may offer managed cloud hosting in which the hosting provider sets up, maintains, and updates the server. Managed cloud services are offered in the public and private clouds. The benefits of a managed hosting service allow users to spend less time on the technical implementation of hosting and more time running their businesses.

Is Cloud Cheaper Than Dedicated Server Hosting?

The cost of cloud hosting starts at around $5 per month, significantly less than the approximately $100 per month entry price for dedicated hosting.

One of the many perks of using cloud hosting services is the cost savings you get compared to that of dedicated server hosting. Your cloud hosting provider can give you similar resources, space, and security compared to a dedicated server but for a much lower cost. When you purchase dedicated server hosting, you’re paying for all of the space on that server — whether you use it or not.

When you use a cloud hosting solution, you only pay for what you use. This leads to immense cost savings for many organizations. Cloud infrastructure allows you to scale up and scale down your resources seamlessly. Of course, if you scale your site too much, cloud hosting can become more expensive than dedicated server hosting. But this only occurs when you have consistently high hosting requirements.

Can I Get Cloud Web Hosting for Free?

The short answer is yes. Many cloud hosting providers offer a free trial to test services. The best-known free cloud hosting trials include AWS free tier, which offers short-term and long-term free plans. You may also take advantage of AWS’s always-free plan.

Google Cloud offers plenty of free choices, including free trials and free plans with usage limits. Feel free to test providers with free offers, but be prepared to pay for cloud hosting in the long run. Paying for quality hosting is always a worthwhile business investment.

How Do I Choose a Cloud Hosting Service?

To choose a cloud hosting service that’s right for your website, consider the amount of traffic, storage space, and bandwidth your site will need. A low-cost plan may be the best cloud option for smaller websites that don’t expect much traffic.

If running a larger website with a lot of traffic, you may consider signing up for a more expensive plan with additional features. Depending on the number of resources your site requires, think about the long-term costs of each cloud hosting provider.

As you go forth in your cloud hosting journey, keep our tips in mind, and you’re sure to find the best cloud hosting provider.

Advertiser Disclosure

HostingAdvice.com is a free online resource that offers valuable content and comparison services to users. To keep this resource 100% free, we receive compensation from many of the offers listed on the site. Along with key review factors, this compensation may impact how and where products appear across the site (including, for example, the order in which they appear). HostingAdvice.com does not include the entire universe of available offers. Editorial opinions expressed on the site are strictly our own and are not provided, endorsed, or approved by advertisers.

Our Editorial Review Policy

Our site is committed to publishing independent, accurate content guided by strict editorial guidelines. Before articles and reviews are published on our site, they undergo a thorough review process performed by a team of independent editors and subject-matter experts to ensure the content’s accuracy, timeliness, and impartiality. Our editorial team is separate and independent of our site’s advertisers, and the opinions they express on our site are their own. To read more about our team members and their editorial backgrounds, please visit our site’s About page.